Fever Broken! Country-wide Infection Cured

The Daily Prophet is proud to be the first to report the rising of a bright new sun this morning, with word coming in across the country that the Maleficent Malady known only as the Infection has, as of last night, been cured.

Sources within the Ministry of Magic are claiming credit for the feat, citing the dedicated work of the staff at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries as a key catalyst in allowing them to succeed. When pressed for details, they declined to comment, but it should be safe to say that the Minister has earned himself that coveted re-election with this, the most recent – and arguably most impressive – feather in his cap…

There were six pages of it. Almost half of the entire paper was taken up with the story of the demise of the Infection and the saving of the hundreds of Infected all across the country.

'Sure do like to heap it on the Ministry,' Fred said, somewhat distractedly, as he was busy levitating a whole fried egg into his mouth.

'Mmm,' James mumbled without looking up. 'And not a mention of the Professor and all the Sanocultus Sap he provided – I bet that was what really cured it.'

'I don't think it was the Ministry at all,' Cat added with surety. She was braiding a length of her hair which, when she sat down, very nearly reached all the way to the floor. 'I think it was-'

'The Vampires?' Cassie suggested, at the same time Fred said 'the Merfolk,' and Tristan guessed 'the Secret International Confederation of Cure-all Hit-Wizards.'

Cat stuck out her tongue at the lot of them.

Although, James thought, there may have been some truth to her words. Perhaps he'd ask his dad what had really happened. He might have some sort of an idea.

As it was, James couldn't wait to get out of the castle and home to his bed. He felt like he had been to hell and back – and had the aches to prove it. He'd once seen a curious bunch of muggles in a store staring avidly at some bizarre contraptions, within which their clothes were spinning around and around. James was currently feeling like he'd just spent the best part of the past night inside of one of the strange Muggle-clothes-spinners.

He'd only regained consciousness a little over an hour prior, and staggered up the steps and out of that hellish dungeon to join his friends for breakfast. He still hadn't had that shower.

He couldn't begin to guess what had happened to him. He'd thought for a while he might have been Infected – he certainly felt sore enough for it – and so it had been with immense relief that he snagged a copy of the Prophet as he downed his morning pumpkin juice.

'Anyone seen Rain?' he croaked. Though he wanted nothing less than to deal with confronting her now, he had to find out for sure just what the hell that mist had been.

'Nope,' Tristan replied.

'She was rushed to Madam Petheridge's tent after her duel with Holly,' Cassie told him. 'She might have been taken to St Mungo's. I- I thought she might have been dead.'

'Don't think she likes catching the Hogwarts Express home,' Fred mused. 'Not a year gone by she hasn't finished in that damn place. Guess it would be a shame to break tradition now.'

'What was that spell that Holly used?' Tristan asked the group. 'It looked nasty.'

'Wait a second,' James interrupted. 'Holly won?' Not the outcome he'd have picked, no matter the fanciful stories about her prowess.

'You weren't there?' Cassie asked pointedly.

James hid his uttered curse by taking a long draught from his goblet, internally kicking himself. He couldn't tell them about where he had been without divulging his suspicions about Rain, their dealings with the stolen Sap, and the fact that he had been within a breath of expulsion. He was too deep in to back out now.

'I was, er…'

'He was with Odette,' Tristan said with a sly smile. 'They probably had other things to keep their eyes – and hands – on.'

James nodded, thankful for the save. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Odette that morning yet, either.

The group launched into a blow-by-blow recounting of the duel between the two girls; Rain's awe-inspiring command of everything water, and Holly's quick-thinking use of the makeshift shadows. There was a certain reverence in the way the boys, at least, talked about how Holly moved upon the dais.

James had to hide his alarm in his pumpkin juice once more as they calmly informed him of Dorian Alder's appearance. He nodded as they each told of their experience within the crushing panic that ensued as hundreds of people tried to flee a too-small stadium, nearly trampling each other half to death in their flight to get inside the castle.

Dorian Alder had appeared at Hogwarts the same day the Infection was cured. The day after he found out that Rain had stolen the Sap from him. The Ministry wasn't likely to let a known victim-turned-fugitive take credit for such a feat as curing the Infection.

Did that then mean that Rain had managed to get the Sap to Alder when he appeared? Had she predicted James' distrust, and subsequent absence from the proceedings and so taken matters into her own hands? Their plan, after all, had been to get the Sap to Alder. She must have done it without him.

He felt like an idiot; he'd likely just betrayed Rain's trust, and almost ruined their plan. He owed her an apology. All of this thinking and unravelling of events was making his head hurt even worse. He was glad when the group finally lapsed into silence, and he could go back to flicking through the Prophet in peace.

Way down the back, almost entirely swamped by the news of the Ministry's great work in defeating the Infection, was another article that piqued his interest.

End in Sight? Renshaw's Reign Questioned after Triwiz Fiasco

The Junior Triwizard Championship yesterday ended without resolution, and in utter shambles yesterday, after known Ministry fugitive Dorian Alder breached Hogwarts security measures and was seen within the school grounds.

The tournament – touted as the brainchild of one Galatea Renshaw – was interrupted before the third-year duelling finals yesterday. A match between a Hogwarts and Durmstrang competitor that would have decided the overall tournament victor. Instead, participants and spectators alike were sent scrambling for safety after the deranged convict was seen approaching the gathered crowd.

"It was absolute chaos, I was scared for my life" one Beauxbatons student was quoted as saying.

"I take full responsibility for the breach of security. No further comment," was all that could be gleaned from a harried headmistress following the incident.

Questions surround just how much responsibility she is willing to take, after the scrupulous journalists of the Prophet uncovered reports of a Beauxbatons student seriously injured in the crush. French Ministry officials have expressed a desire to press criminal charges of wilful negligence against the beleaguered head.

With uncertainty already looming around her role in the attack on the Beauxbatons Abraxan horses on Hogwarts grounds, things are looking dire for the once-loved Headmistress.

Previously viewed as a Ministry darling, the relationship appears to have soured following the mysterious circumstances around the transmission of command of the Steelhearts from Miss Renshaw to the Ministry. It remains to be seen just how far that relationship has fallen, and whether the Ministry will protect the Headmistress from any potential calls for extradition.

A hand clamped down firmly on James' shoulder.

'We should be careful not to believe everything we read in the paper, Mister Potter.'

Had James the energy, he'd have jumped a good foot clear of his seat. As it was, his feeble heart seemed to merely cease beating for a few seconds.

'Headmistress, I wasn't-' he flipped the page of the Prophet shut as hastily as he could.

'The written word is a dead thing, Mister Potter. It holds no truth. It leaves space immeasurable in the things it cannot say, and so leaves the reader grasping for any conclusion that best suits their own, narrow view of the world.

'To really know truth, you must speak to someone. Hear their voice. Look into their eyes and know what they say is true. Or not. Only then will you find the answers you seek.'

'Er, sure.' James agreed.

'A word. My office. Immediately.'

James didn't need telling twice. His friends – some help they were – watched on with morbid curiosity as the Headmistress steered him from the Great Hall with her hand remaining firmly on his shoulder. A good helping of speculative whispering fired up among the students in his wake.

They strode through the castle in silence. The corridors were largely devoid of life. Sunlight streamed through the windows. Their footsteps found no company. At this hour, those who were not eating below, were making frantic, last-minute check-ups to ensure that they had not forgotten a spellbook or trinket or favourite sock.

Inside Renshaw's office mirrored the lack of life without. Her décor – ever on the sparse side – seemed almost stark, now. Few furnishings, almost militaristic in their severe practicality. Not a hint of personal effect – no, that was a lie. A single photograph of a young child frolicking among a field of daises sat upon her desk. Though the tilted, almond eyes were – for once – not turned upon him in anger, James knew they could only belong to one Wren Sayre. Renshaw's favourite evil niece. He frowned at the photo for good measure.

'I find myself hardly surprised that you were absent from proceedings yesterday, Mister Potter.'

She gestured for him to sit in the single chair facing her bare, mahogany desk. The chair was rigid and straight-backed. The pillow more of a suggestion, than an actual thing. It was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked. James couldn't help but squirm.

'I was with Odette.' He was surprised at how easily the lie came.

'Your voice says truth, but your eyes, James… Your eyes betray the lie.'

James swallowed nervously. The Headmistress drew her wand, and James shrunk back in the chair. His eyes darted left and right for an escape, but a benevolent smile crossed Renshaw's face.

'Fear not, James. I seek only to help. You have the stench of the Infection pouring from you. You reek of it.'

James surreptitiously tried to sniff beneath his armpit. Perhaps he should have had that shower, after all…

'Not something as mundane as that,' Renshaw smiled. 'I speak of a smell, but in this case it is more of a magical misalignment, shall we say.'

She waved her wand in a complex series of patterns and shapes in the air before him, all the while muttering incessantly under her breath. James caught only one word in six, and was soon lost entirely in the complexity of the spell. He had been focusing on it so intently that he didn't realise the ache slowly being drained from his body.

'So it is true,' Renshaw breathed, once she had finished.

'Sorry Headmistress, but what is true?'

'That the Infection has, in fact, been cured. It seems that you somehow managed to spend some time among the ranks of the Infected, Mister Potter. So I think it might be time you told me just what you were up to yesterday.'

She gestured for his hand, and took it in both of her own. As she started massaging James' palm a growing warmth seemed to spread from her fingers, radiating out from his hand and filling his entire body with a contented heat, washing away even the memory of the aches that had once afflicted it.

His eyelids grew somewhat heavy, and it was in something of a droll monotone that he recounted the true events of the day past. But he didn't stop there, stretching his story all the way back to the inception of his plan together with Rain. He was just so comfortable. He really felt that he could trust Renshaw. More than that, he knew he could. He finished his story with the theory of Rain handing the Sap to Alder as the true reason the Infection was cured, and his distress about betraying her trust.

'Do not fear that you have done wrong in this, James. I feel that Miss Rain's involvement in the affair was somewhat less… benign that you are suggesting. Though I find myself with more pressing matters to hand than to query her about it, at present.'

James nodded mutely. He felt a wave of disappointment as Renshaw released his hand from her own. She smiled warmly at him. He wondered how long she had possessed such dark rings beneath her eyes.

'I also cannot help but find it both disappointing, and also completely unsurprising, that you sought to take matters into your own hands in this. Trust, Mister Potter, can take a lifetime to build, and only a second to destroy. I think you may have eroded some of the confidence Professor Longbottom had placed in you. I will see to it that when you return to Hogwarts next year, that a suitable punishment awaits you.

'I cannot help but to see a great deal of your father within you, James.'

Despite the preceding dressing-down, James couldn't help but swell with pride upon hearing those words. Renshaw noticed, and shook her head gently.

'Do not be so eager to fill those shoes, James. It can be a curse as much as it is a blessing. We live in different times to your father, a different world. There is no Dark Lord that you are fated to slay. Neither you, nor I, nor even your father, any longer, are any kind of Chosen One.

'Those times were meant for the storybook. Tales of good and evil divided so clear and so sharp that you could cut yourself on it. Those times are not for you and I. No, we face a different kind of evil. Not from the storybooks, but from real life. An evil not painted on a canvas in black and white, but in strokes of grey, sitting atop the surface of water, so that even the barest of disturbances can change the tones so much that you find yourself staring back from the other side.

'Our victory, or failure, is not prophesied nor foretold. We are but pieces set out upon the board. Moving as if we had free will – and perhaps believing as such. But remember, James, what even the most novice player can tell you. That you have to sacrifice a few pawns in order to get to the King.'

The dismissal was clear in the Headmistress' voice. They shared a long, sombre look before James turned to leave. The ache in his muscles had disappeared, but a slight dizziness lingered in his head. He brushed it off as he ascended to the Gryffindor common room, very much prepared for that long-awaited shower.

On the way he paused for a moment, thinking to seek out Odette. He'd missed her at breakfast. But, knowing her, if she wanted him to have seen her, he'd have seen her. He decided he'd best not be pushy. Perhaps he'd see her on the train. Either way, he was glad the way they left things, out on the balcony. For once, when it came to Odette Mansfield, James Potter was adamant he knew exactly where he stood.

Finally in the shower, James let the hot water wash over him, cleaning away not only the sweat and grime of the past two days, but everything else that had come with them. He let himself gasp and shudder, and felt the pinpricks of cold sweat even beneath the hot water at the thought of what had almost been. What he'd almost become.

Renshaw had been right, of course. There was no prophecy protecting him. And yet here he was again, throwing himself into the centre of another perilous situation. Perhaps he ought to stop acting like his father. Perhaps he'd never really be as great as Harry Potter. The thought stung more than he cared to admit. Although, when nobody else around you seemed ready, or even willing to act, perhaps it didn't take a prophecy to make a hero. Perhaps all it needed was somebody to walk first into the breach.

And where did that put things with Rain? Renshaw had been vague on her involvement in all of this. Perhaps she knew nothing. Perhaps she knew it all. James wouldn't be surprised, either way. He'd saved Rain's life twice, in their first two years together at Hogwarts. Had he been that poor of a judge of character? Or was she simply a Queen of deceit. A more likely explanation was that he had just been looking for a way to make a name for himself. A path which led to the glory like his father had known.

Strokes of grey. Had he now gone from saving Rain, to staring across a battlefield at her? He recalled the hatred he'd felt upon seeing the suffering of the Infected in Diagon Alley. The vengeance he'd sworn on the one who did it. The recklessness with which he'd thrown himself into the plan to smuggle the Sap to Alder – anything to help.

But no, he couldn't imagine a world in which Rain was evil. Or, at least, whatever Renshaw's version of real-life evil could be. There must have been some reasonable explanation for what she'd done, or hadn't. Some way that their shades of grey weren't so different after all.

But he found himself unable to know her mind. For one to understand another's motives, all they could do was put themselves in the other's shoes. To think what could have happened to make them act in such a way. What might have driven them to this action, or that decision? But, if one did not truly know the subject, then all was merely guessing, and so James could not say for sure what had passed through the mind behind those sea-green eyes. Merlin, but he'd have given anything for an insight, an explanation, anything.

Although… perhaps there was one way to get some answers.

A shower that had dragged on for nearly an hour was finished in a heartbeat, and James Potter rushed out to rummage among his belongings.

The end of the year at Hogwarts was a time of rituals among the students. Of going through a series of actions the same way they had done so the year before, and the one before that. Actions that, in their repetition, held all the more value, or none at all, because of it. Depending on one's view of the world.

There were the rituals that were as old as Hogwarts herself – friends exchanging lingering hugs, lovers sharing kisses or maybe more. Sudden upwellings of affection meant to tide each other over until next they met. As if that was how the system worked. But, in their very participating in the act, and the extra modicum of comfort and warmth that it engendered, perhaps each and every one of them were showing it in action, after all.

Then there were the rituals not so tempered by time. Those a little newer, and thus more volatile. Without generations of tradition by which to measure their success, they were like an awkward teenager, still finding their way. And so, when, high up in a forgotten tower, a little black book with an embossed, cursive 'L' was refused to be handed over, wands were drawn, and it was taken by force. And if the new owners would never manage to scrub off that single drop of blood upon the cover, why that may add a new layer to the tradition. And one might argue it a fitting one, as blood so often follows gold.

And finally, there were those which were not ritual at all, but had the feeling of such. For every tradition must start from somewhere. So it was for the brown-haired boy who stood alone in a certain Gryffindor boys' dormitory, gazing out the window over the Black Lake, and turning over in his hands again and again a gold and sapphire amulet that was hot to the touch. He watched the waves lap at the shore as if standing vigil, and periodically stopped to stare into the depths of the crystal with a yearning gaze. Searching for answers.

None were forthcoming.

And far below, trapped among the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff, and just above the high tide mark of the Lake, sat a battered, leather-bound little diary which held them all.


A/N: And that's about it for another installment, ladies and gentlemen. I hope this book has answered a few of your questions. But, more importantly, I hope it has left you with many, many more.

As always, I greatly appreciate your continued support for the story, and love to hear what you think of it.

My highly advanced planning system of never being more than 1 chapter ahead means that I have no idea whatsoever as to what the next title in the series shall be. Nor, for that matter, much of what will be in it. Yet. If you'd like to stay tuned, make sure to drop a favourite/follow on my author page/profile thing so you'll get notified when I do release chapter 1 of book number 4. I expect there will be a couple weeks' brief hiatus while the planning and plotting occurs.

J